Two weeks ago we started a discussion on Health Savings Accounts. We discussed why they are so valuable, how you qualify for an HSA, what type of an account it is, how you contribute to it, whether or not you can fund it with an IRA transfer, and what you can spend the money on and for whom. If you would like to read the article, you can find it on my website at www.tlongcpa.com/blog .

Do Expenses Have to Be Paid Directly From the HSA?

Another important tip is that technically you do not have to pay the medical expenses directly from the HSA account. You can reimburse yourself if needed. In fact, you can reimburse yourself at any point in the future from your HSA account for qualified expenses that were incurred at any point after you first established the HSA. It could be ten years later or more, and you can still reimburse yourself as long as you keep really good records, and can prove you did not deduct those expenses somewhere else, such as on Schedule A, or pay for them out of the HSA account in the past. Then you can reimburse yourself for them in the current year and treat the reimbursement as a qualified distribution, and not be subject to any tax or penalties.

This could come in very handy if some year you have a big expense, but do not have enough money in the account to cover it all. You could pay yourself back over a period of years. Remember, by paying the expenses out of this account, you have been able to use pretax dollars to pay for or reimburse yourself for medical expenses you incurred. That said, I would recommend always paying directly from the HSA account unless it is impossible to do so.

Should Spouses Have Separate HSA Accounts?

Here is an important pointer, if you have family coverage, you should consider setting up an HSA account for each spouse. You can only make the additional contribution for your 55 plus spouse if he has his own HSA account. There are a few other advantages to having separate accounts as well. As mentioned before, people over 65 can pay their health insurance and Medicare premiums out of their HSA, unlike people under 65. They can also pay these expenses for their spouse, or dependents, if each is over 65. However, if you were under 65 and were the only HSA account holder, and your spouse or dependent was over 65, you would not be able to pay the premiums. You would need your 65+ spouse to have an HSA account and have money in it in order to pay the premiums. You also cannot transfer money from one spouse’s HSA account to another. So you need to contribute over the years to each spouse’s account in order to prepare for this.

Another advantage of each spouse having an HSA account is for the payment of long-term care insurance. It is clear that if each spouse has an HSA, they can each pay their respective long-term care insurance subject to the normal caps. Without separate accounts, the instructions to the Form 8889 seem to imply you cannot take the deduction for a spouse.

What Happens When I Pass Away?

When you pass away, your spouse can take over the account and use it like his or her own. However, if it is left to a beneficiary other than a spouse, or is undesignated and goes to your estate, then it is considered an immediate distribution, and the entire balance is included in taxable income. It is not, however, subject to the 20 percent penalty tax. Whoever is the named beneficiary and receives the HSA money, pays the tax. If an estate receives it, it is taxable income on the decedent’s final 1040. If some other person receives it, then it is taxable to that person’s 1040. If any final medical expenses are paid from the account within one year of death, those would be qualified distributions and reduce the taxable portion.

Any Pitfalls?

Be alert to prohibited transactions covered by IRC Section 4975 – these are basically self-dealing transactions where you or someone or an entity related to you receives a special benefit in some way from the account. For instance, if you could borrow money from the account, that could be self-dealing. Fortunately, the custodian buffer will prevent you from doing a lot of things that might happen otherwise, but there are still some things you could do that would be considered self-dealing that the custodian would not know about. For instance, if you named your HSA as collateral for a personal loan. That would be a prohibited transaction, and the entire balance would be deemed distributed immediately, and it would trigger taxable income and a 20 percent penalty on the entire balance.

Form 8889

The Form 8889 itself is a fairly simple two page form. Part I deals with determining your current year deduction for contributing money to the HSA, and making sure you did not overcontribute. You add up the contributions from yourself, your employer, plus contributions to any MSAs which count toward the HSA cap, plus if you happen to do a once in a lifetime rollover from your IRA, that would get added in as well.

Part II deals with the distributions from the HSA. Here you essentially list the total distributions, and then subtract any rollovers to other HSA custodians, and subtract any qualified medical expenses. Anything left over would generally be a nonqualified distribution subject to the 20 percent penalty unless one of the exceptions applies – turning 65, becoming disabled, or passing away.

Part III calculates the penalty for overcontributing due to changes in your health insurance coverage status.

If you have questions about other schedules or forms in your tax returns, prior articles in our Back to Basics series on personal tax returns are republished on my website at www.tlongcpa.com/blog .

Travis H. Long, CPA, Inc. is located at 706-B Forest Avenue, PG, 93950 and focuses on trust, estate, individual, and business taxation. Travis can be reached at 831-333-1041. This article is for educational purposes. Although believed to be accurate in most situations, it does not constitute professional advice or establish a client relationship.

A Health Savings Account, or HSA for short, is a fantastic vehicle to pay for out-of-pocket qualified medical expenses which insurance does not cover in-part or in-full. It effectively allows you to get a tax deduction for nearly all of your unreimbursed expenses whether or not you itemize deductions. It also works great for those who itemize, but do not have enough medical expenses to get over the 7.5 percent or 10 percent (depending on your age) of adjusted income threshold before those deductions are counted. Many people assume they are receiving a tax benefit for these expenses when they are not. Simply look at your Schedule A, line 4. If it says $0, or if you do not even have a Schedule A, you are not benefitting from your itemized medical deductions. Even if you have a number there, line three will show you how much you are getting zero benefit from due to the threshold.

How do I Qualify and What Kind of Account Is It?

In order to qualify for an HSA, you must have a “high deductible” health insurance plan. For 2015, this means you have to have a minimum annual deductible of $1,300 for self-only coverage, or $2,600 for family coverage (or approximately the cost of breathing the air in a hospital lobby). Your plan must also have a maximum annual out-of-pocket limit of $6,450 for self-only coverage or $12,900 for family coverage. If you meet these requirements, you are eligible to set up an HSA account for yourself.

An HSA account is kind of like having a checking account just for qualified medical expenses, but is shares characteristics with an IRA account. A lot of people think the accounts are married to the health insurance providers, but they are not. Lots of banks and investment companies offer them. The account is a custodial account held for your benefit, and you get to choose the company that is the custodian, and you can move the money from one custodian to another, just as you could move your IRA from Fidelity to Vanguard, for instance. You often get a checkbook and/or a debit card. The custodian follows certain rules laid out by the IRS, and reports to the IRS at the end of each year the total contributions to and distributions from your account. The custodian is not responsible, however, for verifying that your expenses are qualified medical expenses, as that responsibility falls to you.

If you have health insurance through an employer and the plan qualifies, often your employer and its health insurance representative are instrumental in getting this account established, and they will select an initial custodian. Many employers will even contribute a monthly amount to your HSA account since the high deductible aspect often saves the employer money on the premiums. But even if your employer does not set an HSA up, you can do it. And as long as your health insurance plan qualifies, you can contribute to it.

How Do I Put Money Into the HSA?

Anyone is actually allowed to contribute to your HSA account (if you should be so lucky!), but there is a total contribution limit of $3,350 per year for self-only plans, and $6,650 for family plans in 2015. And you get an above-the-line tax deduction for the amount put into the account each year. Unlike IRAs, there are not even any income phaseouts that would prevent you from getting the tax deduction if you are a high-income earner. If your employer does not contribute enough to max out the contribution limit, you can always write a check to the account for the difference. You even have until April 15 (18 this year) to make the contribution for the prior year (similar to an IRA). If you are over 55 years old (IRAs are 50), you can make an additional $1,000 contribution each year.

If you are enrolled in Medicare or are being claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return, you cannot contribute to an HSA. In years where you change from self-only coverage to family coverage, or if you get married, or go through a divorce, stop insurance, start insurance, etc. be aware that there are special rules and limitations on contributions during those years, and you could subject yourself to a penalty if handled incorrectly. If you find that you have overcontributed for any reason, you generally have until the extended due date of your tax returns to get the money out without penalty. You do have to take out any earnings it generated as well, and those would be taxable in the year you physically take the money out of the account.

Can I Transfer Money Into My HSA from an IRA?

If you are desperate to get some additional money into your HSA, you can make a once in a lifetime transfer from your Traditional or Roth IRA to the HSA via a trustee to trustee transfer. However, it is still limited to the annual contribution cap, and it would be reduced by any other contributions you made to the account during the year! So it has very limited usefulness. If you were going to do that, your first choice would almost inevitably be the traditional IRA since the Roth IRA is already a tax-free account.

What/Who Can I Spend the Money On?

All medical expenses that would normally qualify for a deduction on Schedule A, would be a qualified HSA distribution, except for insurance. Generally, you cannot pay your health, vision, dental premiums, etc. from your HSA. Exceptions to this which you could pay from your HSA include long-term care insurance for the HSA account holder (subject to normal limits on long-term care insurance deductions found in the Schedule A instructions), COBRA insurance premiums for you, your spouse, or your dependents, or health insurance paid while you, your spouse, or dependents are receiving federal or state unemployment compensation. Also, if you are 65 or older, you can pay your Medicare and other health insurance premiums (except supplemental Medicare policy premiums) from your HSA.

For the bulk of the qualified medical expenses, you can deduct them for yourself, your spouse, your dependents, or for someone you could have claimed as a dependent except that they were disqualified simply because they filed a joint return, had gross income over $4,000, or were married filing jointly and one of the spouses could have been claimed as a dependent. If you are divorced with children, you can also pay for your children’s medical expenses whether or not you are a custodial parent or claim a dependency exemption, as long as least one of you qualifies to claim the dependency exemption.

If you take money out of the account and do not use it for medical expenses, it will be taxable income, and you will hit a 20 percent tax penalty as well. When you reach age 65, however, you can take the money out and use it for any purpose with no penalty (as opposed to 59.5 for most IRA owners). So in a lot of ways, should you never use it for medical expenses, it acts like another IRA.

Also for people that become permanently disabled, they can escape the 20 percent penalty tax even if used for nonqualified expenses.

In two weeks we will conclude the discussion on HSA accounts and discuss topics such as whether or not you have to pay qualified medical expenses directly from your HSA, strategy for large bills that exceed your HSA balance, having separate accounts for spouses, what happens to the account when you pass away, pitfalls to avoid, and a discussion of the Form 8889 itself.

If you have questions about other schedules or forms in your tax returns, prior articles in our Back to Basics series on personal tax returns are republished on my website at www.tlongcpa.com/blog .

Travis H. Long, CPA, Inc. is located at 706-B Forest Avenue, PG, 93950 and focuses on trust, estate, individual, and business taxation. Travis can be reached at 831-333-1041.

Perhaps you remember a time when you thought you would get a nice fat tax deduction because you spent thousands of dollars on health care costs that insurance did not cover, only to realize you got nothing out of the deal? The cause that lead to this depressing realization was either because you did not meet the threshold for medical expenses, based on a percentage of your adjusted gross income, or even if you did, you still did not have enough itemized deductions to get you over the standard deduction.

As of January 1, 2013, that threshold was raised even higher – now 10 percent of your adjusted gross income (7.5% for another three years for people over 65). For most people this would generally mean if you make $100,000, you get no benefit for the first $10,000 of medical expenses.

A health savings account is a fantastic option which basically allows even people taking a standard deduction to effectively get a tax deduction for much, if not all, of their out-of-pocket medical expenses. There is also no “use-it-or-lose-it” clause such as can be found in the less flexible “Flexible Spending Arrangement” (FSA). Qualified medical expenses for HSA purposes used to be a broader definition than medical expenses in IRC section 213(d) used for itemized deductions, but a few years ago it was essentially unified.

Eligibility to open a health savings account is dependent on whether your health plan qualifies as a high deductible health plan (HDHP). For 2013, an individual plan must have a minimum deductible of $1,250, and $2,500 for a family plan, among other requirements. The premiums for high deductible plans are much lower (but shop around!) since you are paying a good chunk of the first-dollar costs – just like car insurance deductibles.

You then open a checking account with a company that provides custodial health savings accounts and contribute money to this account. Any contributions to the account lower your taxable income in the year of contribution, just like contributing to an IRA. Then you in turn use that account to directly pay all your qualified medical expenses (as well as spouse or dependent expenses) with a checkbook or debit card. With the savings created by lower health insurance premiums you should already have some money to contribute to your account. For 2013 you can contribute up to $3,250 for a single plan or $6,450 for a family plan (add a thousand to those figures if you are over 55).

Whatever you do not use stays in your account for the future, and you can keep contributing each year. If you never use it, you can take it out and use it for whatever purpose you want with no penalty after age 65. It would be taxable income, however, if not used for medical purposes. If you use it before age 65 for nonqualified expenses, there is a 20 percent penalty, plus it is taxable income.

Some people even view an HSA as another way to stuff a few more dollars into a “retirement plan,” but without the requirement to have earned income, plus the benefit of not having to take minimum distributions by age 70 1/2. If you are enrolled in Medicare, however, you can no longer contribute. Some custodians also allow you to link the account to an investment firm and then invest the money in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.

If you pass away and your spouse is named as the beneficiary, your spouse steps into your shoes and becomes the new HSA owner. If it passes to your estate, it becomes taxable income included on your final 1040 tax return. If it passes to any other beneficiary, the HSA becomes taxable income to the recipient except for medical expenses paid within one year after death. One other tidbit of information – the State of California does not conform to Federal legislation regarding HSAs, so you receive no deduction for contributing to an HSA account and any income generated by the funds is taxable for California purposes.

Many companies have been switching to these plans over the past five or six years due to the savings in premiums, and many of the companies pass some of the savings back to the employees by contributing to the HSA account.

At this point, it looks like HSAs will still exist under ObamaCare, and could conceivably become even more popular if ObamaCare does not pan out and insurance rates keep rising. HSA plans have been found to lower the consumption of healthcare services since they do place an economic incentive for consumers to find lower cost options since the consumers pay for 100 percent of the care up to the deductible. Plans that shelter the consumer from any cost at all do not provide this incentive.

However long they stay around, HSAs certainly are a great option for many people today.

IRS Circular 230 Notice: To the extent this article concerns tax matters, it is not intended to be used and cannot be used by a taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed by law.

Travis H. Long, CPA is located at 706-B Forest Avenue, PG, 93950 and focuses on trust, estate, individual, and business taxation. He can be reached at 831-333-1041.